Wednesday, 26 May 2010

My "Then and Now" features this week again makes use of an image from the Kirklees Image Archive. According to the catalogue, the original image was taken in 1910, so the contrast between the two images nicely illustrates the passage of a century. The Sun - like so many British pubs - did have a "To Let" notice up recently but that seems to have vanished, thank goodness. Back in the late 19th century, the Sun Inn was one of the venues used by the Brighouse Lark Singing Association for its regular contests. Members would bring along their caged larks and prizes were awarded for what was judged as the sweetest singing. One hundred years on and there are no trams, no gas lights, and no larks.

Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Today's photograph comes from another local history on-line image archive - the one operated by Calderdale Council in Yorkshire which is imaginatively called "From Weaver To Web" My example from the archive features an early photograph of Jesse Radcliffe who was the Beadle of Halifax. Radcliffe died in 1867 so the photograph must have been a very early example of the ability of photography to record forever local dignitaries. According to the description, a Beadle was "an officer responsible for the parish. Duties included, administering the poor law, summoning parishioners to vestry meetings, whipping vagrants, keeping children in order and speaking as the Town Crier".

Monday, 24 May 2010

The Lad was home this weekend : exams behind him, en-route for Greece for a week. It was great to see him. He starts three years of hospital placements in a few weeks, so I have a feeling that we will not be seeing quite so much of him in the future.

Sunday, 23 May 2010

I seem to be getting more and more adventurous with the objects I am lifting onto my scanner. I have a green glass biscuit jar handed down to me by my Auntie Annie. The raised figures that adorn each of the four sides are normally a little difficult to make out, but a quick scan reveals a somewhat incongruous 1920s maid pretending to be a Greek goddess.

Thursday, 20 May 2010

Readers of my News From Nowhere Blog will know that I have recently become obsessed with collecting Victorian Carte de Visite (CdV) photographs. You can still find these wonderful old photographs in antique shops for about 50p each or on eBay for a little more. The fact that you don't know who the subject is doesn't matter, indeed it often adds to the imaginative challenge. Therefore, another new series on the Daily Photo Blog will be new additions to my CdV collection. This particular dapper young man was photographed in the Taunton studios of W Morley. I guess it must have been taken during the last decade of the nineteenth century but I have not, as yet, been able to discover the dates when Morley was active in Taunton. Never mind the history, just enjoy the photograph.

Wednesday, 19 May 2010

I can't help it, there is something I just find endlessly fascinating about old photographs. My series of images taken from the photographic archives of the world (which I have now given the running title of "Surfing The Archives") is great fun because you can just pick a single image at random and lose yourself in it for a few minutes. Today's example comes from the photographic archives of the Bibiotheque de Toulouse and dates from 1893. The subject of the series of photographs from which this one was taken was the 1893 meeting of the French Alpine Club. The other photographs show assembled ranks of serious looking climbers and skiers. But with this one the photographer must have had a plate to spare or time to kill. It shows nothing planned or nothing posed. And that is the source of its' great delight.

Tuesday, 18 May 2010

The top picture shows the toll house which conveniently stood at the junction of two old turnpikes just to the north of Huddersfield. Bradley was the place where the Bradford-Huddersfield Turnpike crossed over the Dewsbury-Elland Turnpike. The toll house - at what became known as Bradley Bar - must have been an early example of economies of scale : one toll house serving two turnpikes. Tolls were finally abolished in 1875 but it probably was well into the twentieth century when the old toll house was finally demolished to make way for the road widening and the new roundabout (which is still known as Bradley Bar Roundabout). You can make out the likely location of the toll house by the location of the house on the left of the picture which is still standing.

Monday, 17 May 2010

Sometimes photographs are like a good wine, they improve with age. They need laying-down, putting away in some dark cool room, leaving to gather dust, leaving to gather interest. I took this photo of women bowlers this morning. There is nothing at all special about it. But if someone discovers it in fifty years how much will it tell of the times, of the clothes, of the habits? When it has matured, uncork it with care and decant it with pleasure.

Sunday, 16 May 2010

The great thing about using a scanner instead of a camera is that there are no rules : you can do what you want. It is quite liberating to take the nearest object to hand, place it on the scanner glass, scan it and then look at it from a different perspective. The image above was taken from a scanned image of a paper mache pig that stands on my bookshelf.

The comic books that were used to make it are fading with age, but the hint in shot gives it a three-dimensional feel.

Saturday, 15 May 2010

This time of the year always turns out to be a quest for the perfect picture of bluebells. Somehow the results never quite match up to the expectations. As the splendid Jennyfreckles said on her blog the other day, the secret is to get the lighting right.

Thursday, 13 May 2010

This week's "Then and Now" feature once again uses one of the images from the splendid Kirklees Image Archives. It shows the New Inn pub on Bradford Road, Fixby and is dated as being 1930s (although it looks slightly later to me). Those who know the area might have difficulty recognising the name. In 1965 it changed its name from the New Inn to the Ashbrow.

Mumbai Spice in 2010

Those who have recently moved to the area might still have difficulty with the Ashbrow name, because, last year, it changed from a pub to a restaurant and take-away and is now called Mumbai Spice. Despite the frequent change of name and the more recent change of use, the building is largely unchanged.

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Amy and I pass this row of cottages in the woods often and I always flirt with the dream of living in one of them. The location is near perfect in that they face onto the woods but are within a few hundred yards of a main road. If only there was a decent pub nearby and a functioning fish and chip shop, I might be tempted to move.

Monday, 10 May 2010

The Archive Photograph today comes from the very comprehensive Australian photographic archives held at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. The photograph shows a mean looking machine which is listed as an "Anzac Car" and it dates from the 1928-29 period. Can't imagine what the carbon footprint of the vehicle would be, but I wouldn't mind taking it for a spin.

Sunday, 9 May 2010

I should know better than to invent a new alliterative day - look what happened to Sepia Saturday - but Scanned Sunday is not a movement, it is merely a convenient heading for my experiments with direct scanning. I am not sure where this is going, it is all very experimental. All I am trying to do is to see what can be achieved with a scanner and a variety of objects. Let's just see.

Friday, 7 May 2010

Who needs political certainty when the bluebells are out in all their beauty. In case that is seen as a biased political statement I have included a second version of this image which allows people to colour it in with any shade or tint they desire.

Thursday, 6 May 2010

This blog is becoming very much about linking the past to the present via photographs. Today's picture does a little of this, although the present is yet to come (if that doesn't sound too confusing). I have been scanning some old negatives today, amongst which was this one which I must have taken at least twenty-five years ago during one of my visits to see my brother in the British Virgin Islands. Whether it was the house we were staying in at the time or simply one I passed on my daily walk, I cannot remember. It will be interesting to see how much has changed when we visit the island later this year. I will try and keep a lookout for the same small house and thus complete this "then and now" project.

Wednesday, 5 May 2010

As this blog is now being used for both my own photographs and for photographs from some of the great on-line digital image archives, I thought that I would try to pull the two themes together each week with a "than and now" photograph. Today's is a picture of Netheroyd Road, Huddersfield (just down the road from where I live). The archive picture comes from the Kirklees Image Archive and was probably taken in about 1910. The second photograph was taken this morning - more or less one hundred years later. As usual, the surprising this is how little has changed.

Go to the Homepage of the Kirklees Image Archives

There are always plenty of old pictures featured in the weekly Sepia Saturday

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Two days to go before the general election and it is anything but election fever here. There have been a few Conservative posters on billboards, but a general lack of posters in windows or in cars. There are a few stuck to lamp-posts (in contravention of electoral law I should add) but even these are limited to a name and a photo. My illustration was taken at random and therefore is not intended to signify any party bias. But, I have to say, I would have difficulty voting for anyone who looked so like a second-rate game-show host.

Monday, 3 May 2010

I leave the photographic archives behind today to feature a picture of a pub. Amy and I walked by the Black Horse in Lindley, Huddersfield this morning. The sun was shining, the blossom was out, but sadly it was too early in the day and the pub had yet to open. But the picture was worth taking - and the pub looks worth a return visit later in the day.

Sunday, 2 May 2010

It is a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK and traditionally people would set out for the local fair. I suppose the very opposite to a local fair is a world fair, and today's photo was taken at the Chicago World Fair in 1893. The correct title of the fair was The World's Columbian Exposition and it was intended to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World. The photograph features the Waukesha Water stand at the Fair and it is interesting to note that the idea that Spring Water can enhance health and well being was popular over 100 years ago. The photograph is from the Goodyear Archival Collection of Brooklyn Museum, New York.

Go to the Homepage of the Goodyear Archival Collection at the Brooklyn Museum

Saturday, 1 May 2010

It is the first of May, Labour Day, and my self-imposed deadline for deciding whether to consolidate all my blogs or not. In the end, I have decided to keep the Daily Photo Blog as a separate blog whilst merging "Fat Dog" and "Pint of Best" into the main News From Nowhere Blog. But I have decided to widen the coverage of the Daily Photo Blog to encompass not just my own photographs but also other photographs from the various photographic archives of the world. There is such a richness of photographic heritage out there that it deserves wider coverage. Wherever possible I will provide links to the archives where the images are held so people can explore them at their leisure. I will continue to post my own photographs when there is something new and interesting to show.

Appropriately enough, my picture for the 1st of May comes from the Digital Image Collection of the State Library of Queensland, Australia and it shows a group of butchers posing in front of their Labour Day float in Brisbane in 1920.

Go to the "Picture Queensland" Photograph Collection on the Queensland Government Website

Read the latest post on the News From Nowhere website which features my father, love and motorbikes.

About Me

One time lecturer, writer on European Affairs and bus conductor, Alan Burnett now divides his time between walking the dog and a little harmless blogging. His News From Nowhere Blog has been running since 2006 and acts as a showcase for his ranting and writing and his photographs old and new.